The deadline for commenting on the Sebastopol Inn Planning Application Change of Use is now December 15th, as this has been extended to allow legal notice period once the Planning Notice has gone up

An offer to purchase The Sebastopol Inn has been accepted by the current owners. The prospective new owners are a local couple who hope to move in early in the new year. They have informed ELDC that their offer has been accepted.
It is important to note however, that the current owners are not willing to withdraw their planning application for change of use. We therefore need to continue with our efforts to oppose it.

We have already received excellent support with over 120 signatures on the petition and over 40 objections raised with ELDC.

Please continue to support our opposition to the planning application by;

From:sarahmaryanne@aol.comDate: 17 November 2017 at 15:41:38 GMTSubject:Sebastopol Inn Planning Application ( change of use to single dwelling)

I am sending this email to you as you have previously expressed an interest in supporting the community project to try and save The Sebastopol Inn, Minting.

(Please note that if you do not wish to be included in future correspondence please let me know and I will remove you from the circulation list.)

As you will be aware, the Community Benefit Society made a bid to purchase the pub in May/June 2017 but our offer of £175,000 was rejected. Soon after that, the owners withdrew the property from the market and removed all the pub signs. A planning application was submitted to East Lindsey District Council on 18 October and was validated on 2 November 2017. The application is for ‘Change the Use of Existing Public House into 1 no. dwelling’. The planning reference number is S/122/01919/17 and a link to the ELDC website page is provided below. Comments from members of the public are required by 2 December 2017.

The Community Benefit Society will submit an objection to the planning application covering the general points listed below. In support of our case, we have started a petition and a comments sheet to support our case. These are available from members of the Management Committee for you to sign/add comments if you wish to do so.

Petition – ” We the undersigned confirm that we wish to retain The Sebastopol Inn, Minting as a public house. We support the Community Benefit Society in opposing the planning application for change of use to a single dwelling ( Ref. S/122/01919/17)

Comments Sheet – “The owners state that the community did not support the pub and that they did everything they could to make the business viable. If you have a comment to make please record below”

Main points within the planning application that the Community Benefit Society will object to:

1) The community does not support the pub.

The owners claim that as we were not able to raise their asking price, only made a derisory offer of £175,000 and only had around 80 shareholders, this confirms that the community does not support the pub. They kept detailed records over their final 70 weeks of trading to show how few local residents used the pub.

We will respond to say that many local people supported our project and want to retain the pub although they were not able to invest as shareholders ( the petition responses will provide evidence of this). We will also point out that although the level of support for retaining a pub is high, unfortunately the relationship between the owners and the majority of the local community had deteriorated ( as evidenced by the owners data). This clearly is a key factor in relation to ongoing viability as community goodwill is a fundamental requirement for the success of a village pub.The fact that the current owners did not attract local residents under their ‘destination restaurant’ business plan does not mean that local residents would not support a new owner or landlord with a different business model (the information from the comments sheets will provide evidence of this)

2) The business is not viable and cannot be sold as a going concern.

The Community Benefit Society was able to draw on the knowledge and experience of members of the Management Committee and also received expert advice from professionals including The Plunkett Foundation who have significant experience in helping community pubs. In developing our Business Plan we also used information from the trading accounts of The Sebastopol Inn and were confident that the Community Pub would be viable.

Even if the business was not run as a Community Pub and was purchased by a new owner, we received an independent assessment of fair maintainable operating profit based on owner occupation with the principals working full time in the business. This also indicates that the business could be viable.

However, in addition to the objection that the Community Benefit Society will make, any individual can also submit their comments directly to ELDC.

If you have strong views on the application I would encourage you to do this.

The application documents are comprehensive (the Planning and Viability Statement alone runs to 76 pages) and therefore if there is little evidence of opposition to the application, there is a real chance that it will be granted and the pub, which has been in Minting since 1836, will be permanently closed.

Thank you once again for your support,

Sarah Smith ( on behalf of the Management Committee)

Please visit our website where you can view the details of the application and then submit your comments online.

AUGUST 8TH, 2017

At a recent meeting of the Parish Council, it was agreed to work with the community to continue to look at options to retain the Sebastopol Inn as a viable public house in Minting and a working party of the parish council was set up under the leadership of Cllr V. Brown, who can be contacted on 01507 578755.